Page 269 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2006
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DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.41): I think that it is appropriate that I stand up and at least pepper the opposition’s speeches with a speech that actually addresses the bill. It is extremely evident from the debate raging in the big house at the moment that we have to keep reminding ourselves what that debate is really about. The legislation introduced in the big house just suggests that an expert committee—
Mr Seselja: It is about silly slogans on T-shirts, like Kerry Nettle had. Is that the Greens’ position?
Mr Pratt: Talking about that—
MR SPEAKER: Order, members, please!
DR FOSKEY: If you do not listen, you do not ever have to have a different view. We are seeing the debate in the big house being hijacked, whereas it is actually just about the body that approves the use of certain medications, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, rather than a minister who made it very clear in his speech that his judgment is driven by a particular set of values.
It is really a pity that this debate is also becoming so clouded. I want to compliment the drafters of this legislation, who must have known that they were entering a minefield. I am not an expert, but I think that they have produced some legislation that manages to tread around all those landmines quite effectively. I do think that we need to remember that each of the members of the opposition did receive election funding of about $3,000 which, basically, commits them to taking the stance that apparently they are all taking today.
This legislation is important and complex. What it tries to do is to guide the courts when they are deciding on a case where, due to a criminal action, a woman’s pregnancy is harmed. The first key reason that I support this legislation is that it recognises that the pregnant woman and her foetus are one being.
Mr Seselja: She says that with a straight face!
DR FOSKEY: The men chuckling over there have had personal experience of this, I expect. In this regard, the bill follows the ACT’s human rights guidelines in recognising that a foetus is not an independent being until it is actually born. Indeed, physiologically that is the case.
The second key reason that I support this legislation is that it targets a situation where pregnancies are usually wanted. Let’s face it, sometimes pregnancies are not wanted in the first instance and we have the full range of options there. If a woman decides to go through with a pregnancy, the loss of that pregnancy can be absolutely devastating, whether it is through a miscarriage or, especially, it is due to the actions of a party outside herself. I think we have to remember that often the loss of a pregnancy is as a result of domestic violence.
Therefore, I do exhort the opposition to put as much effort into getting rid of domestic violence as it does into arguing the case of the moral right and also to put as much effort
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